Nagel

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Nagel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Given name for a carpenter, the symbol of” Nail”.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 2.5K(inferred from the name graph)
  • NLNetherlands1 in 8.2K
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 8.6K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈92,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
396 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)

Germany, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

NagelLatin(measured from records)
นาเกลThai(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Given name for a carpenter, the symbol of” Nail”.

Sources 1

  • The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Nagel counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Nagel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈92,000 est.≈1 in 15K—Nagel9
DE Germany#115≈32,000 est.≈1 in 2.5K—Nagel209
US United States—14,5451 in 23K15KNagel396
ZA South Africa#816≈6,600 est.≈1 in 8.6K—Nagel71
NL Netherlands#7042,1031 in 8.2K2.1KNagel67
CH Switzerland—8381 in 10K838Nagel50
AT Austria—≈740 est.≈1 in 12K—Nagel60

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Nagel is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Nägel, Nágel

  • Polish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Czechia, Slovakia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Nágel, Nägel

  • Estonian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Estonia, United States, South Africa, Netherlands

    Languages: Estonian, Finnish

    Also written Nägel

  • Hungarian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, United States, Switzerland

    Also written Nágel, Nàgel

  • Croatian surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

    Also written Нагель, Нагел, Nagelь

46 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Nagel is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, Aus mhd./mnd. nagel „Nagel“; plate shows vowel variants N(a/ä)gel (14,381 bearers, 2 types), i.e. e/ä variation in the surname.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

  • from Middle High German, Middle Dutch nagel, German Nagel ‘nail’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of nails. Compare Enghsh Nail.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, Berufsname für den Nagelschmied; zu mhd./mnd. nagel 'Nagel'. Auch vereinzelt Übername für einen überheblichen Menschen oder Herkunftsname möglich. Bearer count: 15564.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

  • In German, Berufsname: wohl für den Nagel-/Kleinmetall-Schmied, also den Nagelmacher; 15564 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

  • In German, from OHG Nagal 'nail'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

18001850190019502000Christian Heinrich von Nagel, b. 1803Charles Nagel, b. 1849Otto Nagel, b. 1894Conrad Nagel, b. 1897Ernest Nagel, b. 1901Thomas Nagel, b. 1937Steven Ray Nagel, b. 1946Georg Nagel, b. 1953Joachim Nagel, b. 1966Tom Nagel, b. 1980

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 46 sources across 24 countries.

Official registers attesting Nagel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201015K#2,480
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200014K#2,325
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202014K#2,592
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)20072.1K#593
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024838#1,434
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 8

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Nagel mean, and where does it come from?
Given name for a carpenter, the symbol of” Nail”. Recorded by The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History.
In which country does Nagel have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 92 thousand people named Nagel in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nagel.
How common is the name Nagel?
In the United States, the national register counted 14,545 people named Nagel in 2010, about 1 in 23 thousand residents.
How common is Nagel compared with other names?
In Germany, Nagel is the 115th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Nagel?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nagel

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), and bulk access is licensed separately.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Nagel” — the 115th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Nagel parses inside a full name →